Finally back to internet access (in Starbucks, Nassua!), now to catch up.

We spent three days in Elizabeth harbor, first at the Monument anchorage, then across near Georgetown (for the predicted SW wind which never happened), then close to the Volleyball beach. As mentioned before, there are lots of boats here, of all kinds. The largest motor yacht we saw can’t even get into Elizabeth harbor and is anchored near the cut, but then they have a helicopter on the back to make up for these deficiencies.

Georgetown has more island “charm” than the other settlements we have seen, arranged around Lake Victoria. The grocery store is much bigger and is even open Sunday morning for a few hours. But the “bakery’” is still very rudimentary with few baked goods, the laundry overwhelmed by the cruiser business (line out the door waiting for machines), and generally less infrastructure than the 100+ boats in the anchorage might suggest. We got to talking economics with the proprietor of KB’s Chat n’ Chill on Volleyball beach, this extended into the evening after closing hours and after sunset. I had made the guess that the reason there were no beach bars (like KB's) of the type you find out in the Virgins was due to the clientele being boat owners not renters. He is US university educated and spent a decade as a research economist in the Chicago banking industry, had done the research, and confirmed my guess: a family down for a one week bareboat charter is there to spend money, and only a week to do it; while many of the boats in Elizabeth Harbor are Snowbirds escaping the frigid climate of the East Coast, are there for 2 months or more, and on a budget. However he seems to have come up with a formula that works, his place is comfortable and popular during the day, and shuts down before sunset.

We paid for the evening conversation with a new round of no see um bites.

The guides do not speak of the ebb tide standing waves in the narrow channel into Lake Victoria (where the dinghy dock is located) which will soak you and your provisions as you leave, but now you are warned!

We have gotten more used to sorting out the color of the water, what due to clouds, bottom type, depth. The difference between 8 feet (which you have to consider to be plenty of water in the Bahamas) and 6.5 (aground) is still far too subtle for me, but at least finding the deeper water between sand bars and recognizing the coral heads vs. grass or a cloud shadow are becoming easier for me now.

After 3 days we left to head back north. We were a little late getting going, watching a parade of other boats head out with a nice SW wind forecast. Exiting the cut at about 8:30, there were 4 sails on the northern horizon and I set full main and mizzen in about 16 knots true and we sailed "with a bone in her teeth" with mid 8's SOG on the GPS and occasional surfs into the 9's. By 9:30 we had raised 2 more sails, now 7. By 10:30 we had passed the first and by 11:30 were even with the 7th. By the time lunch was cleaned up even this last one was hull down astern. We entered Dotham cut and went around the point to Black Point Settlement again, specifically to use the laudromat advertised as (and is) the best one in the Exumas. Lots of machines in good repair, and they have their own dinghy dock and free internet! In the evening we were serenaded by the sonorous tones of a Honda generator on the deck of a nearby cruiser, with the sweet odor of the daily garbage burn on shore wafting down in the oppressive heat and humidity of the nearly still air. Ah! the magic of the islands…. so I ran the air-conditioning in our forward cabin all night, it runs on the 24V house battery bank and used about 50 AH to keep us in 70 deg. dry air.

From Black Point we motored the short distance to Big Majors Spot in nearly still conditions. Staniel Cay and the “do not miss” Thunderball Grotto are nearby but the approaches to Staniel make it a top-of-the-tide only proposition for us. There were plenty of boats in Big Majors Spot and the resident pigs were on the beach begging for food. We took the dinghy in and were nearly attacked by the pigs. To get them to actually swim, we had to stand off the beach a little, then the larger ones would reluctantly swim to the dinghy. They have not yet evolved webbed hooves and are inefficient swimmers. We took a look at Staniel Cay by dinghy, there is a well frequented bar and restaurant at the marina, and apparently a grocery store up the road which we did not investigate, but it seemed to have more significant infrastructure for cruisers than Black Point along with the associated crowd.

A short dinghy ride took us to the Thunderball Grotto, the dinghy moorings mentioned in the guide are no longer there (this is true of a lot of things mentioned in the guide). We anchored the dinghy and joined the crowd snorkeling into the grotto. It is an interesting rock formation, but we noticed an eastern exit and snorkeled out that side to discover a marvelous sunlit reef with a wide variety of coral and fish, and deserted except for us and the fish - the crowd had stopped at the interior of the grotto.

Retuning to the dinghy, we discovered than some evil powerboat bastard (sorry for the redundant terms) had run over the dinghy painter and cut it to ribbons. There are no rules for powerboat operation in the Bahamas, no wake zones do not exist and the idea that you are creating havoc with 600 horsepower on your 22’ runabout is foreign to them. Bahamians and visitors alike generally make no effort whatsoever to run wide of you in the anchorage or in your little rubber dinghy, no matter that the ocean extends to the horizon, no matter that it would cost them but a few seconds and perhaps 10 gallons (at that speed and power setting) to do it.

Leaving for Hawksbill Cay the next morning we had to tack around ‘Plan B” a modest 266’ motor yacht. If you look closely in the side garage, there is a crew member standing inside it to give a sense of scale. They had a similar garage on the port side. I was able to maintain about 4 knots close hauled in 4 - 5 knots true wind from the west. We had skipped Hawksbill Cay on the way down, it was described glowingly in the guide as perhaps the most beautiful in the Exumas. It seemed to us not to match Shroud Cay though and resolved to return there the next day to see if the Tropic Birds were still in residence.